Integrating Knowledge Management into Corporate Internal Communication

Companies have long tried to both make sense of all the information that they have collectively accumulated over time, hoping to capture the business-critical information that resides in the heads of their key employees. Despite all the enthusiasm around knowledge management (KM), many projects foundered because many users did not incorporate KM into their working practices, which caused duplicate work and revenue loss. Such businesses need answers to three questions: What exactly is knowledge management? Why is it important? How can we use it in real life situation to facilitate communication process? To provide answers, this paper first describes the differences among data, information, and knowledge. Next, it offers a working definition of knowledge management, along with various spectra of KM. Finally, the need to apply knowledge management into corporate internal communication is illustrated by an analysis of knowledge flow in a translation company to demonstrate how KM is deconstructed into knowledge creation, sharing, and transfer, thus facilitating corporate communication. Implications for practitioners to take away are also offered in the end.